Chugga chugga, Chugga chugga

The Ride of My Life

We met at a wine and cheese party. She was my sister’s best friend and the party was being hosted by another sister so lots of sibs and their friends were sharing their wine and cheese. At one point in the evening, we were a group four sharing stories, She across from me and as the other two carried the conversation our eyes met. She smiled.

And that was it. I don’t think we actually spoke. I didn’t even ask her name. My wife was on the other side of the room so getting into a conversation with a beautiful, single woman would have put me on even thinner ice. The ice beneath us had been getting thinner by the day and our brief marriage was about to implode. I’d made a mistake, not my first, not may last but certainly my biggest in asking her to marry me two years previous and I don’t think she liked me any more than I liked her. But I was trying to avoid another big mistake by letting it go without trying.

So She and I didn’t speak. But her smile moved along my optic nerve and ignited an array of memory cells as it went. That was twelve years ago. A year after that party I was single and went to another party, this time at the home of the other sister, friend of She. We met at the door as we arrived and whoever answered the door asked, prophetically, “Oh, did you come together?”. “I brought some wine”, she responded. I smiled but again, we didn’t speak.

It took the better part of the evening to get up the courage to talk to her and, truth be known, she initiated. Thanks, my love. Without that initial connection, I’d have missed out on the best ten years of my life. She was the catalyst that launched me into dramatic, life-altering change.

We dated frenetically and moved in together two months later. She agreed to marry me a month after that and we bought a house a month after that. Less than a year after we first spoke we were married and working on making a family. As we waited for Him to arrive, I went back to school to start a career change, supported by her encouragement, enthusiasm and income. I couldn’t have asked for more.

We celebrated our tenth anniversary this past weekend and it was as good as our first weekend together. It must be love. Ten years is a cause for pause, a time to reflect on where we were, where we went and where we’ll go. Where we’ll go is still under discussion with plans for job changes in the works and retirement ideas still being tossed about. Where we went is a multitude of stories and includes where we went this past weekend - St David’s - but I’ll write about that next time.

Where we were was two middle-aged adults with sacks full of life-experience fuel and when we joined them it was like adding nitro to glycerin. The results were explosive. We knew instinctively that one and one made much more than two (very quickly we were three) and we continue to grow. I used to regret that we hadn’t met sooner and maybe avoided Miss Thin Ice but perhaps without those life experiences we wouldn’t have created the same energy that we’ve enjoyed.

She once described it, in our earlier days together, as a locomotive out of control. We didn’t know that the locomotive wasn’t going to slow down. We did know we were enjoying the ride.